ASX to slip at start of trading despite Wall Street lead

The news: The Aussie sharemarket looks like it might start trading on Friday lower even though Wall Street appeared on course to end a three day losing streak. The three major US indices were higher as technology stocks helped gains.

The numbers: In late trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was inching higher by 53 points, or 0.15%, to 36,107 points. The broader S&P 500 index was up 33 points, or 0.74%, to 4,583 points. The technology focused Nasdaq had improved by 183 points, or 1.3%, to 14,330. On the domestic market, the ASX 200 futures was down 12 points to 7173. The Aussie dollar was up and buying 66.01 US cents.

The context: Google owner Alphabet and chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices led a rally of optimism about artificial intelligence overnight. Alphabet jumped more than 5% as analysts cheered the launch of its newest AI model, while AMD soared more than 9% after the company estimated the market for its data centre AI chips could reach USD45 billion ($68 billion) this year. It was a different story in Europe however where most markets closed lower.